The feast took place in an open fen called the Eating Place in between the “Boggy South” and the “Swampy North”, as Glade introduced it while he took him to the Eating Place.
Chance stared at Glade, perplexed. “Aren’t bogs and swamps the same?”
Glade suddenly glared at him with more hatred than he’d ever seen before on the insane stallon’s face.
“How DARE…” He huffed, inhaling deeply. “How DARE YA insult the bogs and swamps o’ the esteem-ed Water Clan!”
Chance took several steps back, surprised by the stallion’s vehemence. “Uhh…”
“A bog is a mire, a depressi’n in the earth filled with moss an’ water frum runoff.” Glade continued. “And a swamp is a lake o’ pond connected ta the river, full o’ birdies and fish. Both has the gators, though. Gators has no preferences when it comes ta the mires.” Glade shook his mane briskly.
“Okay then. Thank you, I guess.” Chance blinked, wondering what would happen if he suggested that all fish were the same.
“Glade, ya thick-headed leech! Gettover here before I has Rivernight executin’ ye!” Commander Moss bellowed.
“No problems Commander Moss.” He looked at Chance with a cheeky grin. “Ya know why he insists on that name?”
“I can’t imagine.” Chance said dryly.
“Because his real name is Bobmoss o’ all things! His Ma wanted him called Moss, his Pa wanted him called Bobcat, and in the mist o’ their arguin’, the Recordkeepur wrote down his name as BOBMOSS!” Glade began laughing so hard he almost fell into a side bog… or mire… or whatever it was called.
“GLADE!” Commander Moss screamed. “I’ll have ye tanned into a mut carpet, I will!”
Glade shook the tears from his eyes, struggling out of the smelly gloop mess. “Okay, okay.” He got to his feet. “I is goin’ now.”
Chance wasn’t sure if he should be relieved that Glade was leaving or feel sorry of the punishment the brutal Moss was going to give.
He looked around at the gathering Unicorns. There was a large, flattened tree that seemed to jut halfway out of the earth on its side and was carved into a squarish thing, kind of like the top of the mesas that he had once seen in Sand Tribe.
At the end stood Rivernight, in a spot that looked as if it was made for two. On one the long sides of the tree, a variety of Unicorn generals, the thin spiral horns hanging from their manes and beards making them look like spiky lions.
The other side was mysteriously bare except for a few farther down. Chance noticed that Irismoon was not anywhere to be seen. Surely the queen… or banrion, as she was called, would be there at this apparently important feast. And the open spots on her side must be her closest friends and attendants.
Willowlake, sea-green eyes especially set off by the fen’s foliage and contrast of silver coat, trotted up to Chance. But unlike before, when her gaze was welcoming, it was filled with fear and warning.
“What’s wrong?” He asked.
“Listen.” She whispered in the quietest of tones. “I know we have only just met, but if you value your life, you must trust every word I say.”
Every hair on his body prickled. “What do you mean?”
“We don’t have much time, so I will explain what I can.” She said. “My father will offer Purple-Water to you. It’s made from bog-berries and it makes one into a lunatic before sending them to a heavy sleep. It tastes good and it is a very addicting drink, but do not taste it. I overheard rumors that he plans to have you executed in your sleep.”
He inhaled sharply. His instincts had been right. “Why are you telling me this?”
Willowlake opened her mouth, then closed it, tears prickling in the corners of her eyes. “Have you noticed my mother’s… absence?”
Chance nodded. “Somewhat. I found it odd that the queen… barion… whatever, wouldn’t be here.”
Willowlake sniffled again, clearly struggling to hold in her emotions. “I have always been detested since birth.” She said. “For six springs my father has longed for me to be dead, and if I wasn’t an Heiress then I very well would be, on the day of my birth. Kill the weak, for the good of the Clan. But there are very strict laws involving heirs, and you cannot kill heirs, because no one expects an heir to be crippled. So my father was just waiting for the day when he would have the Perfect Heir to succeed me. For years I thought it would never happen. I clung to a hope that his love for me– whatever there was– would win out before then.” She exhaled. “But not one hour ago, my mother has foaled a colt. A son. An heir. My… replacement.”
Chance licked his lips. “Oh my…”
“We will go to the feast now.” She said. “As if this conversation never happened. When everyone is asleep, we shall flee to the Dawnlands together.”
He pulled to an abrupt halt. “What?!”
“You heard me.” She said. “I am no longer safe in my father’s own kingdom.” Her throat gave a small, strangled noise, as if she was trying to stifle her tears.
“But they said… there is nothing in the Dawnlands.” He whispered. “I was reconsidering going to Land Horse Territory.”
A strange look came into her blue-green eyes, then she shook her head. “I will tell you later.”
Chance was quite confused now. A dozen other questions shot through his head, but there was no time to ask them all, because Rivernight had lifted his head and called for Willowlake.
“Take your spot between me and Glade.” She said. “And do not say a word about this talk.”
Chance nodded and found the open gap between the unicorns. Glade seemed unusually cheery– not that being cheery was unusual for Glade, but he did have a rather large bruise on his face, in the shape of a cloven hoof.
“‘Ello Chance!” He chirped. “Lovely feast they’va set out fer us, dontcha think?”
Chance did a double take at the chipperness in his voice. The stallion’s eye was swelling so much he was wondering if it was going to fall out of his head. “I’m sorry… but what happened to your face?”
Glade pulled his head down humbly. “Oh, that was jest me punishment fer callin’ Commander Moss “Bobmoss” ‘gain.”
“Oh.” He found himself at a loss for words.
Glade must have taken his silence for pity. “Oh it’s nothin’.” He said. “Most o’ the time he kills others who call ‘im “Bobmoss”.”
“Why did he make an acception for you?”
Glade beamed brightly. “‘Cause I’m his son!”
He then truly did feel pity for the stallion.
The memory of his last conversation with his own father pricked his memory. Rowansun was a strong leader. Everyone back home regarded him as the greatest chief stallion in Prairie Tribe’s history.
But none of them were the son who faced his only surviving full sister’s death, and the birth of many stillborn brothers and sisters before his mother’s own death, and then watched his father gain a new mate three months after her funeral.
A strong memory took over his mind. Before him all of the food and accented creatures disappeared.
He was standing in the rain. Beside his mother’s grave. He was only a two-spring. Barely a stallion, yet no longer a colt.
A time when a foal needs his mother most.
Sunrise trotted up to him, not much more than a two-spring herself. Her eyes were full of tears and sympathy, having lost her own mother Starshine a few months after they had made their flight into Prairie Tribe from Sand Tribe. She leaned against him, her warmth giving a new light in his younger self’s eyes.
Chance stumbled backward, gasping for breath as the memory faded, everything dark. It seemed at every turn of his past, Sunrise had been standing there next to him. She had been there for him when he needed her most.
How could something that was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives take that all away?
A sharp poke from his side– Glade, perhaps– brough him back to the present, and everything returned to the Unicorn’s feast. He shook his head. No. No more thinking about this. He came here to forget this. He had to forget Sunrise for his own sanity.
“Members o’ Water Clan!” Rivernight shouted. All of a sudden, the heavy chatter that had been going on up until this point silenced.
“Ya may notice that me queen, Irismoon, is not with us to-night.” Rivernight beamed, although the expression sickened Chance and clearly made Willowlake turn pale. “I ‘ave just received word that she has foaled me a son!”
Cheers rang around the table, mostly from the younger stallions who had little to no idea what that meant for Willowlake. Some of the older unicorns glanced at Willowlake with nearly unreadable sorrow and pity.
“And now, we feast, in honor of my son, your prince, Lionclaw!”
More cheering and whooping, mostly about the feast, and then everyone began eating. Chance felt more nauseous rather than hungry, and just observed the strange foods. He recognized some of them– cattails, lily root bulbs, glasswort, tender pine bark, raspberries, and arrowhead roots. He couldn’t recognize some of the others– there was a pile of sleek whitish bars, smelling a bit of pond water, and then that dark purplish juice that Willowlake warned against. Berries of strange and various types sat in different places and something creamy pale in color and quite smooth and ovalish was being eagerly devoured.
He elbowed Willowlake. “What are those round things?”
“Gator eggs. The smallish green things are snapper hatchlings.” She replied.
Chance decided on cattails and raspberries, unwilling to eat anything that was once a living creature.
Glade noticed his pickiness. “Yer not gonna eat the snappers?” He asked in disbelief. “Rare delicacy, they are.”
“We eat… different things in Prairie Tribe.” Chance said.
“Oh, yeah, yeah.” Glade nodded. “You must graze all day like a Land Horse, do ye?”
“I wouldn’t say that…”
“Well then, Foggy, eat up, before the esteem-ed Rivernight changes his mind and decides to let you have nothing at all.” With that, Glade plunged his nose into the dark-purple drink, much to the cheers of Cat and Marsh.
Chance took the arrowheads and lily bulbs.
Hour after hour the feast went on. Every Unicorn slurped up much of the purple drink, except for Willowlake and Chance. Willowlake was, of course, questioned for this, and she said that it made her head buzz and hurt the next morning, and she wanted to be clear-minded when she met her new brother. To this the half-drunken Rivernight had another toast to his new son and downed enough of the drink for ten alicorns.
After most of the food was gone, battle mares and stallions stood up to tell tales about raids and wars. Of course, being quite drunk by now they kept getting stories wrong and being loudly corrected by their peers. Obnoxiously loud laughter rang through the fen.
But slowly, surely, each warrior began to drop asleep. Rivernight fell down into what was left of the mashed brown roots they called potatoes, (the only foreign food that Chance had tried and found that he liked), and one by one the Commanders began snoring. Silence, besides their snores, rang loudly. Glade’s head fell on Chance’s shoulder and he began drooling on his hide.
Finally Willowlake eased out from the table and looked over at Chance. “You ready?”
Chance blinked. “I’m not sure. I don’t even really know where to go.”
“Well… we’re going to the Dawnlands right? There are no Clans north of us, but we’re in the south of Water Clan. Sensibly, we should probably head west, and then make our way North. Being in Land Horse territory should provide a bit of a barrier.”
Chance turned toward the setting sun. “Any dangers I should be aware of?”
“Not that I know.”
He trotted forward, wishing to be as far away from this place as possible. Willowlake followed behind him, quietly, somewhat somber.
Halfway across the fen, she stopped.
“Is something wrong?” He asked.
“I… it’s silly. But I have to do it.” She turned and galloped back to the stone table, to where her father slumped on the end, his great beard covered in mashed potatoes and quite disheveled.
She nuzzled his mane, avoiding the sharp, broken horns woven in like dreadlocks. “I know you never loved me.” She whispered. “But I’ll always love you.”
She whispered something else, but it was so low Chance couldn’t hear. He looked away out of politeness, although he was perplexed at her action. Her father wanted her dead, planned to execute her on the morrow– and still she loved him.
He hated his father from the minute he took Crimsonpine as his mate. The day that, to Chance, felt like he denied that his life with Emberpine existed.
The day that he became only Chance.
“Are we going now?” Willowlake’s quiet voice asked, breaking him from his thoughts. “I know the sunset is beautiful, but we really should be heading closer toward it.”
He nodded, now releasing the ache in his head from staring at the bright light so long. “Oh… yeah of course.”
A ripple of excitement shivered Willowlake’s silver hide. She darted forward with a foalish nicker. “Catch me if you can!”
“Shouldn’t we be more quiet?” He asked cautiously.
“We are free, Chance!” She said. “I do not have to worry about pleasing my father, proving I am enough. They are dead to the world. I will have joy for I am free!” She gave a twisting leap. Her eyes were full of a new life, sparking and playful. “Come on, Chance. Forget your past. Come play!”
Her gaze was so earnest. Faintly, he recalled a younger Sunrise making the same look so many times long ago.
He just stood there, numb with grief. Hecouldn’t help but look at his back where his black wings had once sat so proudly. The memory of the pain of Fireheart burning them off made his back ache.
She looked at his back. “What is it?”
“I wish I could fly again.” He said. “That’s all.”
She swished her tail. “Well then, you will.”
Before he had a chance to ask her what she meant, she closed her eyes and started humming. Silver mist flowed from her body and broken horn, light and flitting. It floated over to Chance and seeped into the scars on his back.
They cooled and burned, and slowly, weight was added to his back. Tears came into his eyes as two great wing-shadows rose from his own solitary one.
He whipped his head around. There they were! His black wings. Every feather glittered and shone like onyx.
“You restored them.” He sputtered. “How?”
She shrugged, looking unusually tired. “Magic.”
A thick sensation of joy took over his senses and he bucked like a suckling colt. He flapped his wings and galloped up to the sky, rolling and enjoying the feeling of the wind in his feathers.
This was freedom! Free of the strange Unicorns, free of the land that brought him sorrow. He could fly, chase the winds, make his own destiny with his own wings.
Seeming to recover, Willowlake mimicked his buck, slightly awkward because of her short legs, and raced toward the gloriously red sunset. With a squeal he didn’t know he had inside, he landed and chased after her, toward the border and his new life.